21. Submitting yourselves one to another. The way to have happy harmony. This submission is reciprocal, mutual, voluntary, and personal. It is opposed to rudeness, haughtiness, and selfish preference of one’s own opinions.

22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. The duty and manner of submission. The Christian home is a symbol of Christianity, and should be a “little bit of heaven” on earth. The word submit (Gr hypotassō) is an old military figure to line up under (Col 3:18) and means to subject yourselves in line in a specialized way. Christian wives will be ordering their lives in proper subjection to their own husbands as required in this relation in the Lord, for subjection to the Lord includes loyal living in the home. Submission is not slavish fear, neither is it forced upon her by a demanding domestic despot, but it is voluntary. There is no hint of inferiority, but a matter of authority and responsibility in the home. Husbands and wives are parts of a unit. The question arises, what if the husband is not a born-again believer? The Word of God gives definite instructions covering such a case (I Pet 3:1–7).

23. For the husband is the head of the wife. The reason of submission. Authority and government are lodged in the husband. The home has its center and unity in the husband. The truest unity is conjugal duality. Even as Christ is the head of the church. Headship in a living union where Christ and His church become one. And he is the saviour of the body. No husband can ever be saviour, but he represents Christ symbolically as good provider and protector.

24. As … so. This description of the submissive obedience of wives is clear, concise, complete, and correct.

25. Husbands, love your wives. The plain duty of husbands is now set forth. Husbands are to love their wives, not treat them as inferior subjects. Such love will lift a husband out of a state of arbitrary self-indulgence and capricious self-satisfaction. Even as Christ also loved the church. Christ is the husband’s ideal example. The measure of Christ’s love for the church is to be the measure of the husband’s love for his wife. Husbands owe their wives the same kind of love and loyalty as Christ has for His bride; supreme, self-forgetting, self-sacrificing love. In the economy of the family and after the manner of Christ, husbands are to reign in love. The church is called the body of Christ (1:22–23). Gave himself for it. The measure and manifestation of Christ’s love for the church. Christ gave Himself both in life and in death on behalf of the church.

26. That he might sanctify. The purpose of His death is set forth in the words sanctify, cleanse, and present. Sanctify means to consecrate, set apart for sacred service. And cleanse. The tense of this participle indicates antecedent action to sanctify. First there was the cleansing and then the sanctifying. With the washing of water by the word. The washing of water refers to “the washing of regeneration” (I Cor 6:11; Tit 3:5). By the word. God the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to accomplish God’s purpose in redemption (Ps 119:9; Jn 15:3; 17:17; I Pet 1:23).

27. That he might present it to himself a glorious church. He Himself as loving, saving, and sanctifying Lord. The Bridegroom presents His bride to Himself. It will then be a glorious church arrayed in glory, with nothing to mar her beauty. Not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. In perfect purity. Spots are from without, wrinkles from within. “The world about the church causes the stains, the flesh still in her causes the wrinkles” (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians, p. 635). But that it should be holy. Morally pure and wholly consecrated. Without blemish. Immaculate, just like the heavenly Bridegroom.

28. So ought men to love their wives. In the same manner and same measure as Christ loved the church, assumed all responsibility for her, and spared nothing that contributes toward His purpose for her. Husbands are under similar obligations to devote themselves, all they are and have, to their own (individual) wives. As their own bodies. Treat them as constituting their own personal bodies. The two have become one in marriage. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For he is completed and perfected in her, with whom he has become one flesh (Mk 10:8).

29. Nourisheth. That it may develop to maturity. Cherisheth. To foster with tender care, concern, and comfort. The best and highest interest of the husband is to recognize his complete identity with his wife.

30. For we are members of his body. Consequently we should understand and adopt His principle in our relationships with each other within His church (Rom 12:4–5; I Cor 12:12–27).

31. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother. In response to this divinely given ideal. And shall be joined unto his wife. Once for all glued to his wife. Marriage is a picture of the union of Christ and His church. Paul insists on the sanctity of the family and treats marriage as an inseparable union between a husband and wife. And they two shall be one flesh. One unit of flesh by assimilation (Gen 2:24; Mk 10:2–12). God is insisting that both husband and wife joined in perfect union live up to the standard of Christ and His church. They are joined together in body, soul, and spirit and should be set apart to each other in a holy union of sinless human relationship.

32. Great mystery. This holy secret revealed in the Word of God is great. The comparison of the marriage union with the union of Christ and His church is the mystery.

33. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife. Husbands measure up to the ideal of Christ in His love for the church. And the wife see that she reverence her husband. Wives measure up to the church in its devotion to Christ.

KJV Bible Commentary. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1994, S. 2424